Subway Series: Johan Santana has rough time in return to mound

NEW YORK – Johan Santana glanced over his right shoulder, just to be sure, as if he needed proof that this evening had soured so quickly.

It was the third inning of Friday night’s 9-1 loss to the Yankees, and another wicked drive was in mid-flight, this one bound for the left-field seats, the fourth homer allowed by Santana in his pitiable return to the mound.

“I know there were a lot of expectations, and people waiting for tonight,” Santana said. “This just happened.”

A week earlier, he cast a spell over the St. Louis Cardinals, and, in turn, the nation, taxing himself with a career-high 134 pitches en route to the first no-hitter in Mets franchise history. In his next start, after six days of rest, the bill came due. The payment arrived in a third-inning flurry with a trio of back-to-back-to-back homers.

The four home runs allowed tied Santana’s career-high. Robinson Cano banged the first two. Nick Swisher and Andruw Jones followed his lead in the third inning. Santana (3-3, 2.98 ERA) left after five innings, with six runs charged to him. Nothing worked: He gave up one homer on a fastball, another on a slider, another on a changeup.

The good news, Santana and manager Terry Collins insisted afterward, was that his surgically-repaired shoulder remained healthy. His average fastball velocity was 89 mph, which is above his regular-season mark thus far. His problem was command, and his inability to keep pitches away from the heart of the plate.

In the aftermath, Collins blamed himself. The Mets tried to protect Santana. They pushed his start back two days. The staff trusted Santana to be honest about his shoulder, the critical joint he became so familiar with during his year of rehabilitation from anterior capsule surgery in 2011.

And Friday, Collins insisted, the extra rest was the problem. Collins saw a rusty pitcher.

“We erred on the side of caution,” Collins said. “And it cost us the game tonight.”

Santana shrugged off that claim. “I think my changeup wasn’t as sharp as I wanted,” Santana said. “You can call that rust, or whatever you want.”

He still believes he can use extra rest when it is available. He made his first four starts this season on five days’ rest.

Against the Yankees, the reckoning came in the second inning after a breezy first. Alex Rodriguez walked. Santana soon learned how Cano treats first-pitch fastballs located on the inner half. The baseball traveled from home plate to the right-field seats in about three seconds.

The next inning, with Rodriguez again on first, Santana’s first-pitch slider flattened onto Cano’s bat, and landed in the second deck in right.

Then came the cruelty. Swisher turned on an 89-mph fastball for the third homer. Then, after pounding Jones low and away all at-bat, Santana flipped a changeup over the middle. That led to the fourth homer, and Santana’s glance of resignation.

“Every mistake he made got hammered,” Collins said. “He doesn’t make those many mistakes in any game he pitches.”

Santana salvaged two more innings thereafter. But all joy of last week was now just vapor, and the reality of the long season had returned.

“I’m happy for everything that happened,” Santana said. “But I also knew that we still had a long way to go. That the no-hitter wasn’t the last game of the season. I knew that I had to go back there again. Tonight was a night where it didn’t work out.”